


all farewells are sudden, reunions more so

by fais_do_do



Category: Prospect (2018)
Genre: Ezra-centric, Failed negotiations, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Missing Scene, Non-Graphic Violence, Philosophy, Sick Character, Trust Issues, self-surgery, the girl has no name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:26:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29704020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fais_do_do/pseuds/fais_do_do
Summary: While Cee ran, fear-fast into the Green, filter-less and compromised by the weight of panic, Ezra lurched to his feet and spread his arms in placation.Or, the moments between Cee's flight from the Sater hut and the amputation prove challenging for Ezra.
Relationships: Cee & Ezra (Prospect 2018)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 52





	all farewells are sudden, reunions more so

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GfromB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GfromB/gifts).



While Cee ran, fear-fast into the Green, filter-less and compromised by the weight of panic, Ezra lurched to his feet and spread his arms in placation.

The son ran, took chase, rag-clothed but helmeted and filtered.

Ezra made a desperate grab for the Sater son, but surprised and weakened by the festering of his wounds, the pressure in his chest, he missed.

His fingers landed on air and he watched as the boy tore out of the hut in pursuit of _her._

Now, Ezra was a smart man. He knew how to grasp the quick tells and turns of local dialects, of cultural mannerisms. He was travelled enough to have some form of fluency in languages once alien to him, once hard to form on tongue. He was _patient_ enough to sit and wait for the fullness of a dialogue to settle, to reveal its true intentions.

But the girl …

It was just a bad spot of luck that had him playing second in a spectacularly failed attempt at parlay.

The Sater did not take kindly to interrupted negotiations. They did not abide by the breaking of an agreed upon congress, nor the sullying of a space held in peace. They did not like offers to go ignored, unheard.

This girl, still unknown to him by name, could not have known that, these rules and nuances of culture.

The blame didn’t lie with her, he knew; her father should have warned her of the settler peoples. Perhaps Damon hadn’t known it himself, though, Ezra knew that to be unlikely.

And, of course, the catalyst for all this unfriendliness, this hostility: Aurelac.

_For the girl_ , the man, Oruf had said, as though it were common business.

He had paused, mind stalling over what had been both genuine surprise over their boldness – the trade of human life was not an economy within which he participated, though it wasn’t uncommon deep in the Fringe - and the need to collect one’s impending words, one’s opinions formed quick over things not before considered.

The girl – _little bird_ \- had not _known_ that.

It would have been hard to have understood over that pause - which, to her, must have seemed infinitely long – over the case of Aurelac.

Nine gems and, by his eye and with luck, 4.5 points worth; one or two had looked particularly fine and may have fetched an entire point on their own.

_I’m sorry, I don’t understand_ , he’d said over a wheezing huff.

The explanation offered had been filled with the language of Sater religiosity, thick with the promise of _rebirth_. Not for him of course, his eyes were still _full_ for material hunger.

His mind had naturally weighed the worth of the deal, he’d asked, _what do you need her for_ , even as his right arm ached with such ferocity that he had felt apt to hack the thing off right there.

He’d listened – as one does in dealings with Sater, understanding his life was in their hands – when they’d implied their intention to take her up replacement as Mother and broodmare.

He’d sat, patient, sweating, sick, as he listened to their talk of The Currents. It was familiar talk; he’d heard it during the rush, had heard whispers of a fringe culture that had developed and taken root in the poisoned soil.

_Then._

With a scrambling scrape she was up.

She had, no doubt, interpreted his participation poorly, had misunderstood it for consideration of the offer rather than the natural reflex of one who has long been involved in a craft; one who understood the pathways a dialogue must take to reach a happy and beneficial end.

Her quick and sudden departure had startled him; she was gone before he could speak again.

Before he could decline.

Before he could make a counter-offer.

Just like that she’d scuttled from his life; she had moved like a channel rat, cunning and knowing of the baton thrust high overhead.

Now, with her gone, he found himself in a predicament.

Oruf stood, slighted by the break in ceremony and angered by Ezra’s attempt to dare _touch_ his son. He shouted at the other two men in their Sater language.

Ezra, though unpracticed in deep conversation, knew what he’d ordered.

_Give chase._

Without much thought Ezra moved to bodily blocked the entrance; he could feel the barest wind at his back of his neck. She’d flung the entrance open, torn one of the cloths, though it must not have been hard to manage; the hut was already set to the rotting stage.

“Stop this –“ Ezra shouted, even as one of the men stepped forward, grabbed the front of his kit, fabric bunching and tight. Ezra tried to lean away; hands still raised.

The man made no further move to harm him, wouldn’t unless he was told.

“ _You impede our work, that which I’ve Seen –“_ Oruf shouted back, in Sater tongue, whether to insult him or a genuine slip, he couldn’t know.

“The girl is in the wind now. It would be unwise to take chase, unsuited and unknowing of her direction.”

It was all true.

Chasing any being into the Green was a fool’s activity and doing so without proper suiting was an easy way to find an uncomfortable death. He knew it would take no _real_ effort – Sater suits were modified mining outfits, made to be doffed and donned with less effort – but he couldn’t help but desire to give the girl a better chance.

He wished no such life on her, despite their tenuous relationship, passed already into a former knowing. He’d been instrumental in taking her father from her; he figured this was as much of a kindness he could offer now.

He spared her a thought as he held his hands higher, an attempt to appear even less threatening than he already was: _fly birdie._

With luck she would find an old mining camp, an old craft with working filtration.

“You defy the Current, eyes so full you can’t see it.” The man switched to Basic, the common tongue, eyes burning with accusation.

Ezra's right arm drooped, neither able to bear activity nor the weight of its own flesh. He smiled a plain, placating thing; he would not last long three-to-one, not taken as he was by the pink-festering of his arm.

The man holding him in position did not loosen his grip; Ezra coughed, the infection only progressing in this unnecessary stall. 

“I understand, I do. But the girl was not mine to bargain –“ Ezra spoke fast, sensing the deterioration of this relative peace. He nearly lost his balance as the man tightened his grip, pushed him back in anger.

Nearly all Sater had once been a being seeking Aurelac.

To a sociologist the psychological transition was a source of fascination. To Ezra, it was a source of concern; the violent man stirred easy underneath the identity of a Sater, the one that had been broken down and rebuilt in a strange world.

“All that is brought by the Current is of the Green, ours for sowing.” The man still spoke in a voice raised in anger.

“I hold no ill will for our failure in parlay –“ The man had had enough; Ezra was not allowed to finish.

_“Heshir. Retrieve our son, our wife. He will not let her stray far beyond our Threads.”_ Oruf said to man stood at his side, hands still on his person, awaiting.

Before the man could move, Ezra grabbed him, his right arm pushing with all the strength it had left, adrenaline lending it unnatural force. His left hand found the hilt of a machete, faster than the bearer in his shock over the unexpected retaliation.

He imagined that he had looked poorly enough that they had considered him – unarmed – a non-threat.

The man – Heshir – reeled back, tried to turn his body and throw Ezra off. He managed to knock Ezra’s hand from the machete’s handle, landed a strike to his ribs, the right side, the same that ached in concert with his arm.

They turned together as Ezra spun, forced him to the side he’d been occupying with Cee. He could hear the clatter of the Aurelac case striking the medical equipment, the canister of Juice, as they trampled them in their uncoordinated dance.

_“Subdue him!”_ Oruf’s voice hollered over their deadly tussle.

A new hand grabbed his shoulder, _left side, thank Kevva,_ and pulled.

Ezra was grateful for the rush of adrenaline, for his violent and vengeful life, because they were the only factors, in that moment, that had set his elbow into the sudden jab backwards; had he been less experienced, or, further along in this sickness, he would have been easily overpowered.

His left elbow landed against something hard, something that _crunched_ underneath it. A human exclamation of pain followed and the ground, the hut, shuddered with the fall of a body.

The release of his left arm left him open.

He knew this, logically, in the empty space between throwing the jab and it’s landing, but he was painfully reminded of the reality when a hand grabbed his right arm. The man had either been watching, carefully, or had gotten lucky.

Heshir grabbed his arm, right over the wound, and _squeezed._

Ezra couldn’t help the sound of pain the abuse tore from him. It was half a yelp, half an enraged cry; his vision blurred, greyed at the edges, all while agony shot up and down his arm. His ears _rang_ , deafened him as the shock of it all overpowered his sense.

It was only skill – that which was born by too many fights had in one’s life – that had his left hand landing a punch against the man’s cheekbone, splitting it.

It was only luck – that which appeared from the ether - that had him reeling back with the same hand and launching it forward, grasping _and_ landing again on the hilt of the machete.

It was an awkward unsheathing, but it was quick all the same. Ezra pinned the man against the side of the hut – it creaked, bent, and Ezra was silently grateful they hadn’t broken through the rotten thing – and held the machete to his throat.

Heshir finally released his own grip on Ezra’s environment suit, understanding that he had lost the upper hand. His hands flew up in a gesture of surrender.

Ezra’s chest was heaving; he could hardly breathe for all the violence he’d just put his body through. He blinked, forcing his vision to clear. He coughed, low and wheezing; his chest _hurt_.

His arm … _his arm_. He wondered, briefly, if he could save it. It didn’t feel like he _could_. The pain was excruciating, it was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. He could feel the heat radiating from it, up into his shoulder, his neck.

It made him nauseous.

He hazarded a glance back as he pushed the machete tight against the man’s throat; he _would_ kill him, and he wanted the Sater to know that.

Oruf stood, untouched, unharmed. His expression was relatively flat, revealed little more than something negative. His mouth was drawn in a tight line and his eyes had hardened into something intense, something knowing, but it was all vague as far as expressions go.

He shook his head as he looked down at him, as though Ezra had been the primary, the singular transgressor in this transaction.

The other man was pulling himself up and off the dirty ground. His face was covered in the red of his own blood. Ezra had broken his nose and both of his eyes had already taken to a mean swelling. Ezra knew, from experience, that they would swell so bad he wouldn’t be able to see come nightfall.

_“Bahr. Fetch our son.”_ Oruf bit out, his tone resuming the same calm that had been present in their initial attempts at deal-making. It sounded disconnected, inhuman.

“Only your son.” Ezra coughed, heaved in the way one exhausted by exertion might; normally, he would have been able to handle this spate with ease.

He doubted the girl was still around; the boy would have brought her back by now, certainly.

_Unless she’s been killed_ , he thought in a dark turn. It would be an immensely unacceptable outcome considering the benign nature of this bargain-talk, or what it had been before this unfortunate turn.

He felt a genuine thrill of concern, of some small sadness, for the girl; it was too easy to die in the Green and the fate seemed unfitting for her.

Oruf looked at him, expression still unusual, unreadable. He nodded at the man – Bahr.

Ezra tried to keep his wits about him, managed to track the movements of Bahr as he left the hut even as the adrenaline began to flush itself completely.

He was sweating beyond what was reasonable and he couldn’t catch his breath; his breathing caught and hitched over every spasm of pain. His head pounded with a new headache and he could hear his heart racing in his ears, replacing the tinnitus that was only just beginning to fade.

However, he maintained his grip on the machete. He held tight despite the shaking of his arm. Even as his right hand relinquished the hold he’d managed on Heshir’s forearm. Slowly, his right arm fell to his side, simultaneously deadened by exhaustion and alight with fiery pain.

“You have spilled blood here after we opened our space to you.” Oruf said, factual, voice untouched by any particular emotion that any given being would easily identify or know to be familiar.

Ezra couldn’t help the breathy laugh that escaped him, the ridiculous nature of his circumstances feeling particularly loud.

“That I did.”

“You did not respond to our offer. You ceased our bargaining and defied the Current.” Oruf glanced down at Heshir and Ezra felt his left arm spasm at the need to relax, to give in to the bodily need to rest.

He was too damn sick.

And, Ezra wasn’t sure how the man had interpreted the girl’s flight into the Green as his _fault_ , or something he himself had designed. He had been as shocked as they had, had worn the same expression of genuine surprise and confusion when she’d risen and flown in motions too quick to consider.

Ezra sighed feeling exasperated with these dealings now turned sour and painful.

“Our former bargaining is over –“ Ezra said, forced into stopping as he caught his breath; he needed to lay down, needed to _leave_.

“ – that which you wanted is no longer –“ He said in reference to the girl-child that had fled. He hoped she had made it; Bahr had not yet returned, and it spun an unusual web of worry in his gut.

He wished, at the very least, he could have had the opportunity to tell her that he had not intended to _accept_ the conditions of the proffered deal.

“ – but I offer a new deal. His life for my initial asking price –“ he swallowed against another thrum of pain, it radiated into his _jaw_ , lightening quick up his arm _._

“How dare you and your boldness, prospector.” Oruf sounded indignant, this time, _disgusted_ as those did, they who held their beliefs close and felt a physical pain when they thought them to be under assault.

“If I recall, your offer was just as bold.” He’d said as much – _that is a bold offer_ – and, if the man were to uncloud his own vision, if he were to put aside talks of the Current and other Sater things, he would see that the offer was, indeed, the _same_. 

A life for something wanted, something _needed_.

Only, in this transaction, Ezra was offering the man a safe return to his life and kin, an execution annulled. It was a decent bargain by Ezra’s measurements.

The hut stilled; only the sounds of his ragged breathing and the uncomfortable shifting of the man under his blade split the silence.

Oruf stood in front of him, unmoved.

Ezra wondered if he was trying to run him down, wondered if he weren’t trying to push the limits of his endurance. It would be an effective method to gain the upper hand for, dust-sick as he was, he’d undoubtedly succumb, soon.

He needn’t wait nor worry on it.

The tension was broken by the entrance of Bahr, his arms full with the son’s contracting body. The boy was wheezing and coughing. His filter hose had been pulled from his mask and dangled from his person like a severed artery. The dust had likely filled his lungs quickly, unbroken by any barrier, unfiltered by even rudimentary technology.

_Good job, girl_ , he thought with a genuine rush of relief. _Kevva_ , she was _tough._

For the first time, Oruf’s expression broke into something relatable, something human; it cracked with worry, brows shooting upwards as he placed his hands on the son. He murmured something too low for Ezra to catch.

Bahr whisked the son away, past the woman’s body that still lay dead in the dirt, and through a flap of fabric.

Ezra would have felt some sympathy for their situation had they not tried to barter a deal of human flesh – _that_ kind, especially – and had the son not taken a lung full of dust in his attempts to hunt the girl down.

This was the way of the Green; they knew that and so did he.

Ezra also knew he was fighting a losing battle; the machete drooped just _so_ , enough to broadcast his weakness. The man underneath him tensed and Ezra again felt his heartrate increase, an uncomfortable thrill in his chest, as his body prepared to fight again

Though, he _knew_ he wouldn’t _win_ this time.

He was – to his immense surprise – spared a secondary altercation by Oruf.

“You will leave now.” His voice was on the border of anger again, but he maintained his posture, his stoic poise. Ezra imagined the machete in his hand was all that kept him from death by the other man’s hands.

“I will, with the supplies, as bargained.” Ezra put all his remaining energy into sounding threatening, as though he were still willing – he was – to kill the man, and as though he were still capable – he _wasn’t_ – of fighting them.

“Make no mistake, prospector. The Current will not forget this. I will not forget this.”

Ezra had no designs on returning to this place again, to this particular community. It was, to him, an immensely empty threat and one he was willing to bear for a lifetime.

When Oruf made no move to aggress, Ezra shifted, transferred the machete to his right hand; he was able to raise it just enough to hold the weapon and rest it against the man’s shoulder.

His own arm bore practically _none_ of the weapon’s weight.

With his left he reached over and gathered the supplies – a single canister of juice and a patch-kit – while leaving the Aurelac to lay just as it had fallen in their scrapping. Aurelac gems lay across the dirt, dust-covered and hazy looking. They looked putrid, like dirty, filthy stones.

Supplies in hand, he inched away from Heshir. With nothing under the weapon, the machete dropped from his grip with a painful spasm of his hand. For one terrible moment Ezra was sure that he’d just doomed himself to a brutal death.

Instead, the weapon hit the dirt with a _clunk_ and the room remained still, calm.

“Hear me, again. I will not forget this.” Oruf said again.

Oruf had decided to honor this deal, poorly made and unrewarding as it was for him.

Ezra nodded, a final gesture of his own personal recognition of the ceremony he had broken.

A final gesture – despite it all – of respect.

They made no move to seize Ezra as he backed away, as he pulled his helmet on, his gloves. They did not attack him as he sealed his suit.

They stayed still and silent as Ezra turned his back and escaped, unimpeded, back into the Green.

* * *

While Cee was trying to navigate the rolling hills of the dense forest, crawling over logs and stopping to check her compass, Ezra was stumbling through the Green, breaths loud and wheezing.

It was near impossible work, energy-spent and feverish. His left hand – his _good_ hand – was occupied by the bargained-for equipment and his right was dead weight and painful.

He had, initially, considered searching for the weapons they had stored, but he’d abandoned the idea when his vision had threatened to go grey on him again. He wouldn’t have been able to _hold_ it anyway. It was a singular weapon or the supplies that would save his arm, his _life._

An easy choice.

Ezra tripped, almost fell, again.

He’d done so many times since having left the boundaries of the Sater camp and he knew it wouldn’t be long before he _did_ fall; wouldn’t be long before he was unable to rise and keep going.

Ezra bent at the waist, right hand landing on his knee even as it wobbled, threatened to collapse under his barely there weight; the other was preoccupied and heavy.

He shook bodily as he took gulping breaths.

Even to his own ears his breathing was _loud_. He knew a dust infection when he heard one, any good prospector did. It set a rattling in one’s chest, made one fever hot and wheezy. It was a thing a being succumbed to, eventually, without treatment.

The juice had helped some, but it wasn’t enough. If he didn’t excise the wound _soon_ , if he couldn’t find a place to put the kit to work, he would die. Plain and simple, true.

He took a moment to scan the land before him; he knew it well enough by now, having spent the last twenty-nine planetary cycles in the area. He knew that beyond the ridge lay the marsh; it promised the most toxic air the moon had to offer as well as the most spectacular view of Bakhroma one could ever lay eyes upon.

North of that was an abandoned camp, he knew.

He’d seen it, once or twice, in his own comings and goings. It had never held any immense intrigue as he’d been well kitted.

He’d had a ship, at one point, had had a good shelter and working filters. He’d had plenty of ammunition and supplies. He’d had a medical kit, wasted in the fire that had destroyed the aforementioned craft. He’d had a crew – all dead, now.

Now, it seemed as though it were his only option.

He desperately hoped it was still intact. Last, he’d seen it – a cursory curiosity – it had been abandoned but well supplied. The filtration unit stood sturdy, likely still worked. The radio, though dusted, had been set to standby, the small red light proving – at the time – that it was still ready for operation. There had been crates of field nutrition, BIT bars if he remembered correctly.

With a rush of adrenaline, borne of a goal realized, Ezra pulled himself from his wheezing hunch and turned himself bodily North.

* * *

While Cee tried to regain her bearings, realizing she hadn’t had them to begin with, the disorientation immense, Ezra was stumbling towards the entrance of the camp.

His breaths echoed loudly in his helmet and for the nth time over the past cycle-hours, he fought the very human urge to pull himself free of it, to release the chamber and breathe air that wasn’t stale and stifling.

It was physically tortuous, being confined to an environment suit sick and injured. The air inside was hot, his wheezing breaths bounced around its insides, creating an awful echo chamber. His comm-link squealed with interference as he neared the radio-antennae.

And of course, everything _hurt_.

His right hand had become nerve-pained _and_ numb; a seemingly impossible combination. His forearm felt tight and contracted. The wound site – the wound site ached so fiercely he imagined, more than once, clawing, animal-like, at the wound bed as if to scrub it of the pain, of the rot. His shoulder, the right side of his neck, too, had joined in the calamity.

He felt _nauseous_ and fevered.

And of course, his breathing: difficult, stilted, pained. Similar to drowning, slowly, he imagined.

The tent came in to view and, with barely three meters to go, he lurched, fell. He landed on his knees, palms pressed into foul dirt. His right arm gave out with a traitorous quake leaving him leaning heavily to the left.

“Come on –“ He muttered to himself, despite the throbbing ache in his right side; it was _blinding_ but he had to move, had to persist.

“Ain’t a thing. Been in worse scrapes, tighter spots than this – “He reminded himself, though, he wasn’t sure that it was completely accurate.

“Come on, up – “ He wheezed, frustrated, _knowing_ that if he didn’t move he would die there in the dirt. He shifted, pushed himself up with his left hand as his exhausted legs found solid purchase.

With all the grace of a thing made lame, he stood, wobbled; he managed to stay upright and continued his trek forward, hands eventually landing on the tent’s zipper.

Ezra grunted as he pulled it upwards.

It caught, dust having put some grit in the teeth and atmospheric moisture setting the metal to rust, but eventually gave in.

He was rewarded with the familiar trappings of the tent he had scouted sidereal weeks prior. It hadn’t change, hadn’t been touched or pilfered. The filtration unit lights signaled that it was still operational, still in working form. The electric module was still active, too; the tent was illuminated by task lamps and small, ceremonial lights emitted a soft, comforting glow, framing the portrait of the Being.

Ezra could have collapsed in pure gratitude for such a good turn of luck in the Green.

He _did_ collapse, but not before tossing the med-kit to the table and scraping his left hand along the filtration controls, activating it.

Ezra lay on his back, arms spread to either side of him, limp and exhausted.

The cool ground soothed the generalized ache that had set in, the fever. He needed a moment to collect himself, to let his breathing calm to something more tolerable, to let his limbs regather their strength.

Ezra reached up with his left hand, undid the clasp to his helmet and pulled. His neck felt strained as he lifted his head but he managed, tossed the dirty, suffocating thing to the side.

By his reckoning he’d walked just over three-thousand meters, dusted and sick.

It was no small feat, even when one was well. The terrain undulated, as though alive; the environmental suits grew sticky, hot, they _cloyed._ He had managed on the single slurry for nutrition, the only nutrition he’d taken for the past two cycles, that single meal shared with the girl.

_The little girl_.

He hoped she had managed the same good fortune. He hoped that she had found a similar situation, a genuine gift in the Green. He knew it was out of his hands, now, but it was with some soreness that he considered his failure to maintain their partnership.

She was intelligent, clearly. She was tough. She was fast.

But, was she ready for what the Green could do, really _do_? Unlikely, he decided.

His left arm drifted up to brace his right, hand landing over the still throbbing wound; the foam’s analgesic component must have degraded with the sealant. It hurt far more than it should.

He hoped she wasn’t kip enough to seek out the mercenaries. It would be a fool’s errand to make an attempt to win favor with those sorts; he’d made dealings with their kind enough to _know_ that.

He had the _scars_ to prove it.

A rogue thought crossed his mind; _could seek her out, when this is done with._

And, yes, he _could,_ though he imagined what he had said in that Sater hut held true: she was in the wind now.

Even so, the idea of a little girl running without direction, without knowing of the lay of the land, was troubling. He wasn’t one to take on such responsibilities – _burdens –_ as it were, wasn’t one to take under his wing the sad and lost things of the Black.

But, this was the Green and it was unlikely she’d survive it.

At the very least he’d try, even if it were but a few cycle hours spared to the task.

And, if she weren’t to be found he would move on, as one did.

Ezra took a few long, deep breaths. The wheezing had mostly subsided. He could _taste_ the air, could tell that the air filtration unit did indeed work, that the tent would be cleared in moments.

Even the pain was receding; it was still loud, needed attention, but no longer did he feel it in errant places unrelated to the wound.

_Kevva_ , _the_ _luck._

Ezra huffed a genuine laugh, his body quaking with the relief, the elation of a man who has been granted a stay of execution.

He was going to make it _and_ keep his arm.

Ezra felt like the luckiest man in all the Black.

* * *

While Cee searched her pack and came up wanting, forlorn, Ezra was holding a scalpel to the wound in his arm.

_Hovering over_ the wound in his arm would be a more appropriate description.

He’d never excised his own wound before, was fully aware that one _shouldn’t_. It was often considered the work of a secondary, a being trusted, as it was messy and tedious work. It required a steady, patient hand, and his left wouldn’t do.

His left was weak and unpracticed in finer movements. His left felt awkward over its grip of the scalpel; he kept readjusting, unable to get the feel.

His left hand was _shaking_.

It wasn’t the shake of a man’s nerves, that bodily betrayal that spoke of too much stress, too much action, too little rest.

Rather, it was that of the fever.

He knew he shouldn’t be surprised, as he’d seen enough bodies burdened by the festering of dust, but he _was_. The fever had come on quick; had him sweating and aching and breathless in a sixth of a Green cycle.

He’d thought it had been well quelled by his arrival at the tent - the cool floor had soothed the ache and had calmed the burn - but as soon as he’d begun his preparations, had started moving again, the heat-sick had returned in full force.

Ezra knew he had to do this now.

He looked down at his arm, the angle difficult.

It looked terrible. The foam had been too easy to wipe off; he suspected it had never even set properly, that he’d been doomed to this state from the minute he’d left the girl’s, Damon’s pod. 

What lay underneath was a mess of torn tissue – actively bleeding in a slow ooze – and black rot.

The Thrower bolt had been an immediate pain, had been taken at close range, had burnt the edges of the wound and destroyed tissue and muscle under its direct strike. It had swelled terribly, the entirety of his outer arm, bicep had become reddened and angry.

He could feel it, the _true_ damage.

His forearm felt as though the muscles could only respond in a sluggish spasm, as though he couldn’t use the muscles as intended. Something in his ring and pinky finger felt off - nerve damage, likely. The other three fingers tingled and twitched with random fasciculations; sometimes they went completely numb. 

He doubted his arm would be the same, even with the excision, even with the care he intended to seek out once he’d made it clear and clean from the Green.

He supposed he could count himself lucky; lucky that he hadn’t suffered a wound to his abdomen or chest. There would be little to do for a wound of that caliber, in the Green.

At worst he could amputate the arm – something he was avoiding with great effort, both in action and thought - but, the chest, or the abdomen? It would have been a death sentence.

Ezra’s breath hitched again and he knew he could no longer delay this terrible task.

His left hand fumbled with the scalpel; he turned his wrist, once, twice, before giving in to the reality that he would find no comfortable position, that he was severely lacking in skill.

“Okay, quick and easy – “ He said to himself needing to fill the space; the small utterance made the quietude a little less unbearable.

He took several short breaths hoping to brace himself, despite knowing better.

There was no way to brace oneself for excising a wound, for cutting deep into one’s own flesh, weak-handed at that.

The blade took to the wound-bed and Ezra’s vision immediately flashed, failed, with a shock of white. His left hand immediately pulled the blade away.

He knew he had made a sound, a startled yelp, but he couldn’t remember hearing it.

“Fuck – “ He groaned, pronouncing and pulling the ‘f’ for a long, satisfying drag.

The pain was more than he expected; any relief he had received from his initial, brief respite has been ruined and replaced with more of the same. Hot, horrific agony – muscle, tissue and nerves frayed – in the entirety of his right arm.

He was sweating; a steady streak drained down his temple, beaded at his chin.

He was too hot, felt faint; he belatedly wished he had fully removed his environment suit. It was pulled to the waist, tied in a knot at his hips. It felt unbearably suffocating.

He breathed in ragged gasps and waited for his vision to clear.

In and out, in and out – too fast and accompanied by the _whoosh_ of his own heart racing a muffled beat in his ears.

When it finally did, he looked down; he’d managed nearly nothing. He’d cut into his flesh, but the black remained, looked just as it had before the first stroke.

Again. He had to try again.

Without waiting for himself to feel even slightly ready, he set his left hand into a rapid descent, cutting again.

He fought the urge to clench his eyes shut, forced himself to look and grit his teeth against the pain, even as agonized groans fought their way past his teeth, his lips.

He angled the blade, tried to _scrape_ what he could from his flesh. Left-handed he was clumsy, he couldn’t split the fine line between inflamed tissue and rot. He could hardly keep from mutilating the healthy flesh.

Ezra wished, for an errant moment, that he had help. He couldn’t wipe the blood clean _and_ excise the wound. He knew he was opening the wound, creating a gaping, pitted mess, but he couldn’t see anything but the drainage.

Black spilled down his arm, comingling with fresh waves of red. That was _good_ , so he pushed deeper, desperate to get this finished.

Deeper, it turned out, was _not_ the way to go.

He hit something, bone maybe - he wouldn’t cut or nick it, the scalpel wasn’t set to cut bone – and his stomach lurched while fresh, strange waves of pain emitted from the wound.

Sticky heat rolled down his arm and he felt a wave of dizziness overcome him.

He’d gone too deep.

He’d cut too much of the healthy tissue.

He was losing too much blood and not enough of the black rot.

Ezra pulled away again with a gasp. His entire body was shaking, and he could hardly keep his grip on the scalpel. He could feel his vision blurring, again, grey encroaching at the edges.

“No, no, mm-nnn –“ He shook his head in a negative, a protest to his own weakness.

_Breathe_ , he reminded himself. The urge to hold his breath was persistent and wholly useless.

“Gotta finish the job –“ He heaved, taking a gasping breath, a sad attempt to calm even a sliver of the pain.

He _had_ to finish the job.

Not finishing the job meant losing his arm _if_ he could manage the procedure. It meant _dying_ if he couldn’t.

He was running out of options and it was his own damn fault. With each delay, each misstep, he was shedding his possible outcomes; he was picking through his cards, one by one, and was casting them aside due to his sheer inability to _perform._

Inevitably, all that would be left would be the uncaring face of the card that spoke _death._

Ezra dragged the back of his left hand, scalpel still in his grip, across his forehead. It came away wet with perspiration. It came away feeling burned with heat contact.

His hand shook terribly; he would not have let that hand near him with a scalpel had it not been his own.

Ezra coughed as he fought the urge to give in to the bodily need to hyperventilate. He felt as though he were on the edge of a genuine panic attack, so compromised was his body by pain and the growing dust-infection. Laying on the ground, again, giving up, sounded painfully attractive.

His adrenaline was wearing thin; he could feel it in the way his left arm drooped, even as he held it over the wound.

With a final deep breath, he plunged the blade down again.

He knew immediately this wasn’t to be. His arm spasmed terribly as if to beg mercy from his own administrations. He lifted the scalpel; he’d hardly managed more than a second or so for his third and final attempt.

More blood, more pain, and barely any rot. 

He let the scalpel fall from his hand. It made a dull sound as it hit the ground and he hoped he’d be able to find it later.

_Later_ – when he _amputated_ his arm.

He could tell with a cursory glance that what he’d managed had not been enough. He could tell by the thrills of nausea and pain, the weakness and dizziness that beset him so terribly, that he wouldn’t have a choice.

This arm - his arm _would_ kill him.

Ezra breathed in, moved to stand, to attempt to shake this discomfort from his frame. He felt as though he needed to pace. It was the anxiety, he knew, over knowing an unpleasant task – more than that which he just attempted – was imminent.

As he moved his vision blurred, distorted the view before him – not that there was much to look at – and his body flushed with a wave of weakness.

Before he could really comprehend what was happening, he was on the ground staring up at the swirling frame of the temp and the nauseating green tarpaulin.

_No, no_ , he thought, _unacceptable._

He could _not_ pass out now; he knew full well that, in some sick turn, he could die from this. The wound could bleed without his knowing as he lay insentient. The sickness could take and pull the last vestiges of vitality he had.

_I need help_ , Ezra thought in a desperate, vision-greyed moment.

Help he was unlikely to get. Not from the Sater. Not from the Green. Not from that poor girl that had run wild from the hut.

A stubborn, desperate thing had him sitting up.

The stubborn, desperate thing was that which understood if he did not move, if he did not act, if he did not try to seek _help,_ he would succumb.

His body was not amenable.

He attempted to sit up, pushed himself with his exhausted left side. He hadn’t thought it possible, but he broke out into a new, cold sweat.

A thrill of fear ran through him, a bodily shudder, as he realized he was passing out, that he would, in no way, be able to control whatever was to happen. His left arm grasped at nothing, desperate to find purchase in a better reality.

Even as his vision faded from grey to muddled black, as his back hit the ground, he tried to fight the pull.

He needed – wanted - _help_ , he thought, as he sunk into the ground, into a gaping abyss, senseless.

* * *

While Cee held her Thrower high, barrel pointed towards the gurgling and belching of a Bakhromian Spore-Pot, Ezra lay on the ground of a ramshackle tent, unconscious, bleeding slowly from his failed attempt to save his arm.

* * *

While Cee leaned against the bole of a vibrant tree, coughing over lungs full of dust, Ezra was waking, peeling himself from the cold ground.

He’d come awake and into motion before even understanding he was conscious; an automatic reflex, a vestige of the primal fear that had stayed with him during his initial descent into a black-tinged collapse.

He managed to pull himself into a sitting position, legs splayed before him, right arm limp at his side.

He stayed that way for a long moment, on the verge of another faint.

Finally, Ezra pried his eyes open, understanding, still, that he hadn’t time for anything but a good an honest attempt to keep going, to find a solution to his problem.

He looked around through bleary, exhausted eyes. The scalpel lay just next to his right leg. Not lost, then; he vaguely remembered fearing he’d allowed it to scuttle unseen into some dark corner.

_Up, get up_ , his inner voice was persistent and unyielding to his exhaustion, his pains. He was still fever-soaked, still in pain, still in decline, but he had recovered his senses. He was no longer on the edge of some deadly faint.

He had to _get up_.

With a groan, a whimper, he reached his left hand towards the para-steel table, gripped it and weakly pulled himself to his feet.

It was slow work, his grip feeling inadequate, but he managed. On his feet now, Ezra leaned bodily against the table, took breaths that went deep into his chest, caused his diaphragm to spasm.

Miserable. This was miserable.

But, for some reason, he _laughed._

Miserable and _ridiculous._

Had he been watching himself, had he been nothing but a casual observer, he would feel no particular tug of sympathy. His empathy would not rouse, would not be inspired by the sight of him.

He had played the part of the fool in the Green and was, in turn, meeting a foolish end.

Ezra shook his head, the weight of his actions – each one a misstep – landing; the ferocity of their settling almost _soothing._ He had failed so terminally – and all for want of another man’s riches – that he had nothing left but his drive to survive.

Aurelac had passed from his mind – and this was no small thing; he’d made a living on it for far too long – and, in some off twist, he felt a strength renewed.

It was as though the life he had left was clawing to the surface, lending the required energy to act, to do something more than confront that which has led him to this sullen place. 

Sweating, feverish, he looked around for what may prove useful to his current plight. The western wall of the tent was lined with crates of BIT bars; he figured that was a decent start. He desperately needed to put something into his body, needed nutrition. He felt as though all the energy he’d had had been bled from him by his own messy administrations.

He made a tired, lurching shuffle towards the cases, collapsed against them, and pulled one open. The material crinkled under his left hand and Ezra was struck by how _deadened_ his right arm had become; it hung limp, accessible only through the channels of nerve-pain awareness. It didn’t respond to neural commands to move, not more than a twitch, at least.

He grabbed what he could: a fistful, an amount that was _hopeful_ and probably optimistic because he knew managing one would be hard, unsavory work. He’d never liked the grainy grit of BIT bars.

Ezra returned to the worktable, tossed all but one of the bars onto its surface; he brought the remaining to his mouth, pulled it open with his teeth in a messy burst.

While he chewed, swallowed, all mechanical and purely for the sake of nutrition and not at all for enjoyment, he thought.

He considered the mercenaries. The girl, that bright young thing off in the Green, hadn’t confided in him their location. He knew that was likely a dead-end option, regardless. He wasn’t sure he could make such a trek, even without the haze of dust-fever and the dead hang of his right arm, without the _pain._ He’d never manage to convince them to cure his ills _before_ offering the job of an extensive harvesting.

Ezra wasn’t sure he’d manage to harvest weak handed, as it were.

No. It was not an option. It was not an option to take the Green himself in his own harried flight, sick and only growing sicker.

They’d shoot him on the spot, make sport of it.

He coughed over his very dry throat, the bar’s residue cloying; he looked around, again, failed to locate water or anything hydrating.

It was with disappointment, a terminal sinking feeling, that he realized leaving the tent was an unlikely option. He had the best of what the Green could offer here. He knew of no other camps located close enough to reach. He knew the girl’s pod and his own ship were too badly compromised, depleted, to be of any particular use, shelter or otherwise.

All he had left was the remainder of the patch kit – enough for the procedure, the amputation – and the BIT bars, the shelter of the tent, relatively clean air.

Uninjured, unincumbered by bodily failings, he could live off this space for sidereal weeks, _months._

A companion and their willing assistance, at the very least, would carry him just as far.

Ezra finished the paltry meal, some of the fog clearing with the excessive amount of saccharine sweetness. He shook his head, if only to acknowledge the shortening list of possibilities.

The truth he’d come to know during the botched excision remained: he needed _help_.

His luck, his fortune, would have to be immense to manage such a feat. Finding decent, willing, warm-handed help in the Green was about as easy as mining for Aurelac blind.

But, Ezra wasn’t one to back down before he’d been truly cowed. He wasn’t one to roll-over and die like a thing scared of life, a thing that found death easier than the alternative.

His mind was already reaching, searching, _planning_ as his gaze settled on the radio.

Small, dim indicators stared back, a steady set of red dots that spoke of their willingness to assist, to work on his behalf.

With some effort, with a groan, Ezra redirected his efforts into ensuring the radio was broadcast ready. It was a simple machine, one he’d used before, and it was with a surprising amount of ease that he had reconfigured its settings and opened the channel.

He cleared his throat, gathered his thoughts; the words he chose would have to be those of intention. Broadcasting, open and honest, to the Green was risky, was, for lack of greater words, _stupid._

A pointless effort: he thought, before speaking, of who might answer.

Would it be someone crazed, made wild and hungry by the Green, looking only to hunt down that which was already dying, dead?

Would it be someone as malaised and ill as he, looking after their own salvation after an equally bad turn of decision making and luck?

Would it be someone with a steady, willing hand; someone who looked at suffering things and still _felt_ something?

It didn’t matter, Ezra decided.

He’d bargain, he’d fight, he’d do whatever he could to leverage assistance because he _needed help._

He cleared his throat and forced something harmless into his voice; he cleared it of the exhausted, dust-filled rasp, added something buoyant, something that would endear folk to even the most violent thing.

“Hello?” He said, stopped as he thought, for one final time, of who was – who may be - on the other end.

There was nothing for it; he’d get whoever came along, whoever didn’t.

“Hello to the Green.”

* * *

While Cee came to a stop in a jilted stumble at the edges of tree-line and marsh, Ezra spoke, voice reaching out with desperate, fine tendrils into the Green.

“Hello to the Green.”

He said, friendly-like. Friendlier than he was feeling. Friendlier than the reality of his situation, right arm burning, sending wickedness up and down, through his nerves, into his bones.

“In return for assistance, I am offering the promise of gems, good pearls from which I’d be willing to part ways for well under the peak of rush rates.”

He said, imploring. Imploring the Green to find it to be a good deal. It was not, he knew. Trade for Aurelac was complicated, personal, and all manner of thing in the Black had been once brought into parlay for it. He did not know if this leverage would hold appeal to whomever listened.

It would be easier, he knew, to kill him when the deal was done. To simply take it.

It would lay before his potential partner, good and free for the taking, by the law of violence and the upper hand gained.

He put some additional strength and gusto into his voice; it hurt his chest, made him feel, all the more acutely, the draw of fatigue.

“Nothing funny. Just a desperate man trying to make a bad deal with the right holdout.”

He said, promising. Promising a version of himself that would not threaten bodily harm, that would not – for want or will - snuff life as he’d threatened to do to multiple people in the two cycles past.

“If anyone is out there, don’t hesitate to click on.”

He said, amenably, patiently, as though he were in want for conversation and nothing more. He wasn’t one to bray into the void, to file long complaints over his situation to an uncaring expanse.

Static was his only response.

He put the comm down, left shoulder drooping, tired. The fever was getting worse. The cough was getting more persistent. The pain …

He’d rest, then try again later, he thought, even as soft footfalls - unknown to him, in that moment - sounded outside the tent.

* * *

While Cee held her father’s Thrower before her, its length leading the way into the rotten tent, Ezra turned to look, the intrusion made of stages.

A noise.

A shaft of light.

The rusted barrel of a _weapon_ seeking a target.

With the adrenaline of a being approaching its death throes, Ezra lunched forward, grabbing. It would be unacceptable, impossible, _ridiculous_ , to be shot _again._

This time, he did not miss. His left hand found its target true. He pulled at the being behind the weapon. It was easy work, even in his wretched state: the wielder was small, slight, unpracticed.

He pulled, disarmed, and shoved the body back, deeper into the tent, to the ground.

_She_ collapsed in a huff, overpowered.

It had all happened very quickly, but now, danger passed and adrenaline waning, he realized who this was.

_The girl_ , he thought, shock-quick, and then, _little bird._

* * *

While Cee gathered herself and sat up with an unhappy frown, a thing caught in yet another snare, Ezra zipped the tent closed and tossed the Thrower onto the worktable. The effort of his quick movements, of a fight anticipated, had his lungs up and bothered, his breaths hitching.

He glanced at her – could see the fatigue in her form, could taste the intrusion of Green air, even from that small breach of the tent’s seal – and reached up to re-engage the air filter.

They’d need to clear it before it settled thick, and the girl would need fresh air. It had been half a cycle since they’d parted, a long time to stumble with a dead filter in the Green.

It took him a moment longer that it should have, his left side _tired_. When it whirred back to life, he hung there a moment, dizzy.

When he looked at her again, he couldn’t help but feel badly for her. She looked like any creature did when it was cornered; anticipatory, suspicious, _frightened._

They hadn’t reached that point, that _trust_ he had warned her was necessary for them to have an agreeable partnership, and it showed.

They stared at each other for a moment, her eyes alight with negative things, scornful. It was the second time he’d disarmed her – both times injured, once freshly so, and, now, well into the trauma – and he had no doubt that he’d again proven himself a being worthy of a gun at his back.

“Take your helmet off –“ Ezra choked on the tail end, gasping over lungs that had had _enough_ , over an infection that was only getting worse.

He knew it would do her no good to continue to breath in whatever had made its way into her environment suit. The helmet would need to be wiped down before she donned it again; dust was _stubborn_ , sticking stuff.

It would also help him assess her condition.

Though he had suspected she had made it from Sater territory unharmed, he couldn’t have truly known. He had worried over her; small, errant thoughts that didn’t evolve beyond a latent concern. He had wondered how best to find her once he’d saved his arm – a plan made moot rather quickly – and had turned what he knew of her over in his head, trying his best to understand her personality and where she would go.

He hadn’t expected this return, hadn’t calculated it as a remote possibility.

Though he had wondered if she would be the one to answer his call, he had also been rather certain that she would not; he had expected she would hightail at the mere sound of his voice, running until the signal wilted, sputtered, and then broke.

But, here she was.

He coughed, looked down at the ground; his body desperately wanted to follow his gaze, to collapse right there.

Ezra was glad, genuinely, when she complied, even as she glared at him as though she could kill him with an impassioned stare.

He couldn’t help but grin as he watched as she popped it off with a snap and a hiss.

She was _tough_. She was spirited and would, if capable, strike him down right there. He knew she _wanted_ to, had wanted to from the beginning of their meeting.

She looked now, more than any time before, likely to try.

He liked her, this plucky kid, this girl that always looked as though she were on the edge of flight.

Ezra took in the sweaty, stringy hair, the impressive shadows developing under her eyes, the exhausted gaze, and huffed. She wasn’t _hurt_ , he could tell, but she didn’t look well; she’d taken a small beating in the Green. He’d seen himself look that way before, too, after filters gone bad or accidental exposures from failed equipment.

“You look like shit.” He smiled at her, raised his brows as though it were funny, as if to say, _the Green’s a real bitch, huh?_ ; it was a kind welcome to the rather exclusive membership of those who’ve run tired and dusted to the point of near death on a backwater moon.

They _both_ looked like shit, probably, both having suffered from too much exposure, he could feel it for himself and see it plain in her features, her bowed, collapsed hunch.

She looked like she needed some time in fresh air. She looked _hungry_.

The least he could do was help her regain her strength; he was well practiced in this sort of thing, taking care of those quick dust sick bouts, and he didn’t see a reason for her to suffer any more than she had.

The smile dropped from his features as he huffed with the smallest movements, the mere act of leaning over the worktable making him sick with fatigue, weak with dizziness.

He looked for where he’d tossed the BIT bars before in his own desperate claw for nutrition.

He grabbed a loose bar, right arm pained and limp as the left did all the work, and tossed it to her.

“Eat it,” he breathed over the stifling squeeze of his lungs, “there’s cases of them in here.”

He said it just in case she distrusted him too deeply to accept nutrition, to believe he hadn’t tampered with it.

He watched her for a moment as she ate, absolutely ravenous.

For the first time since meeting her, since being involved in the business that killed her father, he felt bad for the part he’d played.

No little girl – teenage and fierce, or otherwise – should be dust-sick and starving in the rotting bones of an Aurelac miner tent. Nor should they have been forced to sit in quiet congress while adult men spoke regarding the potential trade of her person.

He grabbed the Thrower, intent on returning it; she needed to feel _safe_ is this thing would ever work, if he were ever to be worthy of her trust.

Ezra realized he had been asking and expecting too much of this girl, before: to trust him without earning it.

She didn’t look up when his knees gave out, slowly enough for him to catch himself on the worktable, but fast enough for him to be forced into a sitting position on the floor, next to her.

He still wanted to help her, he realized. Not just for the gain of Aurelac, or for a trip off the Green Moon, but because, suddenly, he _needed_ her off this terrible rock.

He felt his goals shifting, transforming, as he accepted the idea, the thought.

He _wanted_ her to make it out of here as much as he wanted to continue on living. It was happy serendipity, then, that both seemed to be things easily combined.

Sat there, watching her eat, his body slid towards the seduction of another collapse. He could feel his hair stuck to his forehead and heat roiled off him, as it made his environmental suit near unbearable to inhabit.

Ezra didn’t have much time and he knew, though the girl’s traumas were far too fresh for his request to be kindly timed, he had to ask.

“Here.” He said as he grappled for the Thrower, as he handed it towards her; he could barely keep his eyes open.

The girl immediately stopped what she’d been doing, BIT bar forgotten, as she sat up. She looked predatory, as though she needed to time her reclaiming of the weapon just so. She looked as though she didn’t trust him to not snatch it out of reach, laughing and mocking, when she made the grab.

_Kevva, I **am** an unscrupulous asshole, _Ezra thought with only a small turn of mirth; it was a mostly disappointing revelation.

His arm was about to take to shaking when she, finally, lunched forward _;_ it reminded him of the quick, deadly movements of a Dornish sand viper.

The girl grasped the weapon and retreated. She held it up steady, pointing right at his face. A good and proper threat, if her ever saw one.

He smiled a bit at her boldness; he had wanted to laugh but lacked the ability, so drained was he.

She didn’t smile, didn’t find any of this amusing.

He _did_ like this girl.

He could feel his energy waning, fully. He closed his eyes in a tired blink that easily could have become a terminal sleep, and opened them again, panting slightly for the anticipated effort of speaking.

Before he spoke, he processed, accepted the possibility of her refusal; he would understand if she refused.

He would understand because here she was, exhausted, shaking dust sickness and steel-eyed, _father-less_ , all because of him.

He _would_ understand.

“I need your help.” Ezra said, hoping.

“After you left, those Sater weren’t too keen on helping me out, so, I had to treat myself –“ He stared down the barrel of her Thrower; it didn’t budge from her grasp, even as she looked him up and down, taking in the reality of his weakness.

“- I botched the excision –“ He said in a low voice, tired. At the mere mention of the excision the memory, his arm sent a thrill of nerve-irritated pain into his side. Ezra closed his eyes, shook his head over the memory of it. He’d done such a _poor_ job of it.

“ – I wasn’t able to clean scrape and the blackness –“ His head lolled to the right as he visualized the area, again, as though he could see through the bandage he’d hastily applied, the one that still bragged a spot of sticky, crimson breakthrough.

“ - and now, if I don’t lose my arm, it will kill me –“ Ezra ended the thought with an out of place chuckle.

His breaths hitched painfully as he tried to allow the absurdity of all this, bleed into the space they occupied. He didn’t know why he found it amusing, though, yes, he _did_ , but it didn’t make it a thing less complicated.

Death by one’s own stupidity, by one’s own hunger for materials things was a funny thing.

“ – and I can’t perform the procedure by myself.” Ezra decided that was the end of it, that was his final word.

He knew the question was already imbedded, that it had _started_ with a question; _I need your help_ transforming with his pitiful, exhausted attempt at explaining himself into, _will you help me?_

Ezra waited, watched her; her glare didn’t subside and, for a moment, he found himself looking down, both from exhaustion and _shame_.

She gave the briefest shake of her head, chin jut up in raw defiance, unmoved by his pain and _plea_ for help.

“Were you going to give me to them?” She asked, her voice steady and serious.

She _deserved_ to get off this Moon, Ezra thought. Her tone was unforgiving, her posture straight and confident.

He breathed a tired breath, the question forcing him into a rapid remembering of the events, of how quickly the situation has escalated, how quickly he’d found himself performing physical and mental feats, all in the name of survival.

There was no point in explaining the pause that had followed the Sater’s offer; it was a long telling, would require her to understand him better, to understand those automatic calculations and considerations anyone of his trade pursued, even when unsavory.

Ezra looked down, again; he would not attempt to mount any sort of grand defense for those moments in the hut.

He would allow her to make the decision to trust him or not, to decide whether anything had been earned.

“No.” Ezra said, simple and plain, with the affect of a person who knew their fate was very much so in another’s hands.

He said the simplest version of his truth, for, in the end, even in his worst turns, honesty always won out; it was a terrible, terrible character trait.

He waited for her judgment, breaths hitching and painful.

He would understand if she refused.

He _would._

But …

But.

She _doesn’t._

“Okay.” The girl said, her jaw twitching in a tick. It was as though her body understood it was a poor decision, that his worth had already been used up.

Ezra huffed again, a humored, unbelieving thing.

He needed _help_ and _she_ was going to give it.

It would be a long while, sidereal weeks, before Ezra would come to understand the quality of her character fully, before he would come to understand how direly they needed each other’s intervention, _company._

It would be a long while.

But, until then, they had work to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who “had” to open a Netflix Prospect tab again. 
> 
> This bitch.
> 
> Another thirty pages devoted to this errant little film. What am I doing, ya’ll?
> 
> Thanks, GfromB for the prompt; sorry it took so long.
> 
> Notes on the Saters: they have names, apparently. Oruf was the leader, Fahr, the son. The other two were Bahr and Heshir. Gali, I believe, was the dead mother. My very slight and occasional dyslexia read her name to be ‘Gail’ and I thought, huh, odd choice, but okay. All praise Sater Queen Gail (RIP).
> 
> And there I go again, making up shit. I don’t really know what Sater religion is. Some of it was based off what was expressively said in the film, the rest is whatever I came up with writing it. It seems an anti-material theology with focus on kin and clan, maybe nature based. Who knows?
> 
> We will see more of our favorite Sater-fam in the future. I promise.
> 
> Notes on Ezra’s broadcast: there is a spot where you can’t understand, at all, what that eloquent fuck is saying. I am fairly certain that I have half of the first part of that spate of hard-to-understand transmission correct: “from which I’d be willing to part ways for well under the peak of rush rates.” 
> 
> I am actually under suspicion that, in canon, Ezra stole Aurelac from the Sater, if not the majority of that case. I think he was offering the Aurelac in return for aid; however, the Aurelac never came up in the film, nor was it leveraged later when meeting the mercenaries, so I decided upon his services offered over actual exchange of possible gems. The more I watch and consider the film, the more I believe Ezra left the Green with Aurelac in hand.
> 
> But, that also doesn’t fit with the other story I wrote, we violent ones, so I happily went the other way with it, because I’m lazy and a canon-ignoring bitch.
> 
> Long story short, though, our boy needs to calm down and speak plain.
> 
> Notes on future stories: with luck, and with time off that I have desperately requested, I will have the next story out in the next week or so. My ER has been an unrelenting hell hole, still, and has been burdened beyond the capacity it was built for. Translation: I haven’t been writing a lot. My apologies.
> 
> I am also open to requests and prompts, should you be so moved or interested to see your own plots played out.
> 
> Notes on titles: all titles of my stories are derived from Rilke; I cannot claim such poetry. For anyone wanting to feel something deep in their soul, I recommend Ranier Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Thank you, loversandantiheroes, for sharing that braincell with me.
> 
> Thank you all for your support; the response to We Violent Ones has been staggering and has kept me warm during terrible times, exhausting days. I appreciate all of you; the commenters, the kudosers, the boomarkers and the silent, passing readers. Those who have – apparently – shared my work with friends and across platforms. 
> 
> And to those who have asked: I haven’t any social media or blogs. I wouldn’t know how to interact with fandom via them (I started writing in ’98 when everything was Xanga, LJ, FF.NET, or a dedicated fandom site) but wish I did. You all seem so spectacular and interesting. I truly wish AO3 had a DM system, though. I’ll consider trying Tumblr, though I may let you down in re: to content. I DO have an e-mail listed in my profile, if anyone wants to use it.
> 
> I don’t read much fic myself, these days, but I want to read what ya’ll have put out there! I will be sure to say hello when I do.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed, and I will see you soon. Stay healthy and safe Prospect fam.


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